See Them Die полностью

He knew now that the notion was false, and he wondered which con man had ever sold him such a silly bill of goods. When the bullets slammed into his chest, he felt nothing at first but impact. He had been punched before, punched with hard driving fists that had knocked the wind out of him, and he knew what it felt like to be hit. He had once been struck with a hammer swung by a delirious building superintendent, catching the blow on his shoulder, feeling the sharp sudden pain of metal against flesh. But he had never been shot, and he knew now that when a man got shot he didn't daintily clutch his chest and say, "Uggggh!" and then do a fancy movie-extra dive. He knew that the force of a bullet was like the force of a steam locomotive, and he knew that when you got hit with a bullet, you got knocked off your feet. It was as simple as that. Maybe everyone didn't get knocked off his feet when he was shot, but the bullets that struck Hernandez spun him around from his crouch and then knocked him flat to the fire escape.

He felt only impact and shock at first, and then the cold sensation of falling through space, will-less, unable to control himself, simply falling, falling, and then colliding with metal, powerless to stick out his arms to cushion the fall.

And then he was on fire.

The fire engulfed him. It started with the two gaping holes in his back where the bullets had left his body, and then ran straight through his body like burning tunnels to the two smaller holes at the points of entry, and then suddenly flared up to consume his entire chest, and then his shoulders, and then his throat and his face, a roaring fire. He found it hard to breathe, he sucked in air through his parted lips, and he dimly realized that one of the bullets must have gone through a lung, and then blood bubbled out of his mouth, and he thought it was saliva until he saw its bright-red splash on the cuff of his shirt, and then he panicked.

Gasping for breath, his body on fire, pain lancing through him, he felt the panic rush into his head and settle behind his eyes like a pair of thumbs pressing outward. More blood bubbled from his mouth.

Giddily, he wondered if he were going to die.

The thumbs kept pressing against the backs of his eyes, spreading darkness which came in waves and retreated. He could hear shouting in the street below. He wondered if they'd collared whoever had done the yelling.

He wanted to puke.

He felt the nausea start deep in his stomach, tasted the vomit in his throat, and then the fire escape was spinning, the sky was spinning, the world was spinning, and he choked on his own blood and crashed into unconsciousness.

The boys had vanished like Arabian horse thieves.

Zip had begun running the moment he'd shouted the warning to Miranda, shoving his way through the crowd, dashing around the corner. Papa and Sixto, as soon as they realized what had happened, followed him. All three were gone before Byrnes, Carella, and Parker rushed from the doorway of the tenement.

Byrnes turned his head toward the fire escape instantly. "Frankie!" he yelled. "Frankie!" There was no answer.

"What happened?" Parker asked, struggling to catch his breath. "Is he dead?"

"I don't know. He's just laying up there. We got to get him down." He stared suddenly at the sidewalk beneath the fire escape. "What the hell is… Jesus! Jesus Christ!"

"What is it?" Carella asked.

"That's blood!" Byrnes said, something like awe in his voice. "That's blood dripping down!"

The men watched the steady patter of drops to the pavement. The drops fell silently, as straight as arrows, one after the other, spattering to the pavement in an ever-widening stain.

"We got to get him off there," Byrnes said.

"It was a kid who yelled the warning to Miranda," one of the patrolmen said.

"Leave it to the kids," Byrnes said, shaking his head. "Sometimes I think the kids in this precinct are more damn trouble than all the professional thieves put together."

"It ain't them," Parker said, watching the dripping blood in fascination. "It's the parents. They come here without even knowing how to speak the language. What the hell can you expect?"

"My old man had a brogue you could cut with a knife," Byrnes said. "What's that got to do with…"

"What'd you say, Lieutenant?" a reporter behind the barricade asked. "About the kids?"

"Nothing for publication."

"You think the kids today will grow up to be like Pepe Miranda?"

"No. That's not what I think."

"What do you think, Lieutenant?"

"I think we've got a bleeding man on that fire escape, a man who may be dying. I think I want to get him off there while there's still a chance for him, and I think you'd better get off my back before I restrict the area to all reporters."

"Don't get touchy," the reporter said. "I've got to peg this story on something."

"On something? What the hell do you want? A Barnum and Bailey circus? Peg it on Miranda, peg it on Frankie Hernandez who may be up there dead, for all I know!"